A weekend at home

I quite often save my posting (and taking) of photos for when we have a weekend away or a special event or something.  My camera's been languishing in the cupboard and so I thought I'd take it out this weekend and just photograph some of the things we do.

So here's Tom in a normal weekend morning pose - having done some colouring (not entirely on the paper, you'll notice).

Meanwhile, Marisca was working hard at her alphabet, entirely unprompted.  I'm pretty impressed, although she has more than enough Es to go around.

Later on Marisca and I went down to the local produce market.  It seems to be picking up again, with 10 or 11 stalls today, and we picked up some good sticky toffee pudding, some cheese, and some sausages.  And today there was a crepe stall and we happened to need a snack, so Risky chose a chocolate one.  She was quite excited.

Later on in the evening we did go out - another event in city park (the Bradford Shine festival).  The kids enjoy being out a bit late, having tea out in a cafe, and wandering around with glowing sticks looking at the lights.Similar to Light Night in Leeds last week, but smaller and less busy.

And then today, we had planned earlier to go out for a short walk.  The day started very foggy and gloomy, and hadn't improved by the time we left church, but had fixed itself shortly after lunch to turn into a lovely sunny autumn day.  We had a 1.5 mile(ish) walk around Chellow Dene, a very local pair of reservoirs and wooded area in Bradford.  We've not been before but will again.  Suitably sustained with flapjack and orange juice, the children both walked much of the way, enjoying exploring and playing.

And although they still fight (and Tom was in tears 10 seconds after this photo), it's nice that they're enjoying playing together and interacting more and more.  Here Marisca is helping Tom to do up his backpack.  Even more surprisingly - it's actually her bag.  Cute.

Art

Marisca is getting much much better at drawing all in a hurry. She will now do some pretty decent stick people and pays attention to colouring within the lines, and even produced a decent cross section of a kiwi (fruit, not bird) the other day.

This morning after breakfast she asked to do some painting and produced this modern masterpiece. It started off as a face, turned into a train, added a little planet called Mars where only aliens and spacemen can go, and finished with a lake. It's lovely to watch her imagination in action!

Cheeeeeeeese

Did I mention that Tom is smiley?

Tom's report card

Tom has had his first report card from nursery.  Well, it's called a 'My Learning Picture Summary Sheet' but it looks like a report card to me.

It is interesting to see what we already know being noted and written down by someone else.
"Thomas is a very sociable child"
"Thomas knows all the colours and counts with help"
"Thomas is very stable on his feet and climbs on everything we have to offer in nursery"
"Thomas enjoys learning different words"

They don't really say that he's super smiley or that he loves giggling to himself and calling everyone cheeky.  Or that when we mention Bonbons he immediately tells us he'll play with trains, cars, and Michael.  He's definitely getting on well there.

School

Someone was very excited yesterday:

She was excited about putting on her uniform, she was excited about putting on her new school shoes (polished by her the day before), and she couldn't wait to go to school. We live five minutes walk from the playground, but an hour before we needed to leave she was dancing round the backyard and desperate to go "so I'm not late for my first lesson".

Eventually we convinced her to sit and wait. Here she is reading the 'first day at school' instructions:

When we finally took her to school we were able to take her inside and find her peg (with an astronaut on it), have a look around the classroom (with penguins to count and a book corner) and finally wave goodbye and leave her in the capable hands of her teacher. I have to admit I didn't feel remotely teary - it feels like completely the right time for Marisca to be moving on to school, and I know her teacher well so know she is in safe hands.

Unsurprisingly, Marisca had a brilliant first day at school and bounced in and out of the classroom today as well. So far we have found out that:
 - they do some singing at the beginning and end of the day.
 - she sat next to a girl and a boy at lunchtime.
 - she likes playing outside.
 - she read alot of books!

So, two days down, many many more to go. We even have our first homework this weekend, with five 'tricky words' for us to work on with her. Marisca of course took one look at the list and read them all straight away - reading is her favourite thing after all. We will see what the next weeks bring, but I am so glad her first experience has been so positive. What a grown up girl!

Kettlewell camping and scarecrow festival

Fans of the blog will surely be wondering where all the camping has gone this year.  A rudimentary google search for "blueberry curls camping" suggests we've blogged about it c. 3.36 million times.  But this year we've just not found the time.  Having got back from Australia we sought to rectify this and booked a weekend up in Kettlewell.  

Fans of the Mosedale children (multiple generations) will know that when camping, you take photos of football being played.  

Those same fans will know that breakfast consists of multipacks of cereal.  Two boxes each day, with this pair.  This might be the last year that Marisca gets her own choice each day though, I imagine those coco pops will be quite coveted.

We had a lovely walk up Consitone Dib and to Conistone Pie.  Marisca did great, nearly 3 miles of walking and quite hilly.  She loved scrambling up the gully and we loved watching her have so much fun.

It was very windy on top!

Fans of Elspeth will know that Elspeth doesn't like me publishing pictures of her mid-eat, so this is the best family photo I have.  Marisca is mid-eat and mid-sulk too.

Fans of Wharfedale will know Kilnsey trout farm.  We had good fun exploring and feeding the fish.  

Even fans of scarecrows will find Kettlewell Scarecrow Festival a little bit too much.  There were some very good scarecrows and some pretty dull scarecrows.  There were a lot of scarecrows.  We abandoned after c. 75% of known scarecrows and had cake in a cafe instead.  A wise choice.  Here are my favourites: may pole scarecrows and wedding scarecrows.

And I'm not sure how this happened.  I mean, I remember taking the photo so it definitely happened, but I have no recollection of any blue sky whatsoever this weekend.  That didn't stop us having a lovely time though.  More camping next year!

Butterflies in the park

I'm catching up on weekend photos - I think these are about a month old...  Elspeth found out on the local grapevine about these great willow butterfly sculptures that some people had installed in Northcliffe Park, at the top of the hill.  They really were quite impressive (and hopefully they're still there).  We had a nice walk up, looked at the art, made out own (much simpler) version, and just had a bit of a run around.  Very much a nice local thing to do on a warm summer's weekend.